Eric Burin

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Outside of Scheels stores are statutes of four U.S. presidents, and beside them are plaques with quotations from those presidents. Unfortunately, several of the quotations are fictitious. They're simply made-up, as if Scheels wanted to remake these very different presidents in its own arch-conservative image. One sees a similar reworking of reality when reading board chairman Steve D. Scheel's recent letter to the editor, in which he questions Senator Heidi Heitkamp's affinity for bipartisanship.

Gov. Burgum—I write to urge you to veto HB 1369, the state's latest Voter ID bill, for reasons you can appreciate. You pride yourself on being a data-driven decision-maker. Given your affinity for reliable, unbiased information, you surely know that voter fraud—the supposed impetus for the bill—is virtually non-existent in North Dakota. In government as in business, there is no virtue in devising pernicious solutions for imaginary problems.

A few weeks ago, North Dakota's Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer shocked many when he suggested that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ought to be jailed, a radical and authoritarian idea that reminded many of the tyrannical exploits of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and third-world dictatorships. Now Cramer is calling for congressional investigations of the media.

Recently, a video surfaced showing Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women. In response, North Dakota's Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer, after perfunctorily stating that he does not condone Trump's words, quickly changed the subject by attacking Hillary Clinton, insisting that "her actions and words would land most people in jail." Cramer's comments further erode the notion of "legitimate opposition," a concept that has served our nation well since the peaceful transfer of power from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans following the election of 1800.